Full Dark House

∨ Full Dark House ∧

37

THE VOICE OF THE ABYSSINIAN

Arthur Bryant stood outside the café lost in thought as the rainwater slipped through its blast-damaged canopy, dripping onto the shoulders of his gaberdine. Some office girls dashed across the road with newspapers held over their heads. A taxi splashed past with a dirt-smudged child sitting on the running board. A tramp in a torn cardboard hat was carefully stepping in and out of a large puddle at the kerb, his head bowed in concentration. The safe canopy of inclement weather had brought life back to the night streets. Bryant checked his watch again, and decided to give Elspeth five more minutes.

Like Geoffrey Whittaker, Harry, Stan Lowe and Mr Mack, Elspeth belonged to a brigade of workers whose lives were lived in darkness, a perpetual night divided into sections that ran concurrently from one production to the next. Bryant was surprised how little they knew of the world beyond their own circle. They were the real theatre angels, happy to remain in the shadows beyond the footlights, only tangentially attached to the stage, essential to its survival.

He checked his watch again. She must have known that she’d be too busy to break for supper; that was why she had insisted on meeting him outside the café. She had not wanted to hurt his feelings by refusing him outright. He pulled his scarf a little tighter round his neck and sniffed the cold air. For a brief moment he thought he had been given a shot at finding himself a new girl. But it was clear where Elspeth’s loyalties lay. After repeatedly choosing work over women, he felt as though he was getting a taste of his own medicine.

At moments like this, the memory of Nathalie returned. He missed her so badly that he wanted to cry. As he stepped back into the foggy drizzle, he decided to avoid the theatre in order to spare Elspeth embarrassment, and walked off into Soho to buy himself a mug of cocoa.

When he reached the corner, something made him stop and glance back at the theatre. He looked up at the pairs of mullioned windows, and had the briefest impression of being watched through the mist. A pale twisted face, a fleeting presence, like the fading heat of a handprint on glass. It dipped back from the window, and the thought of his aberrant imagination chilled him. He was starting to believe that buildings held ghosts.

“There’s something in there I don’t understand,” he told May later. “I want to take someone in with me after dark.”

“Don’t say it,” warned May. “Don’t tell me you want to go ghosthunting in a theatre at midnight with one of your clairvoyant pals.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do, how did you know?” asked Bryant innocently. “Edna has a good sense for these things.”

“Not your alternative theologian, the woman with the cats,” groaned May. DS Forthright had told May about the eerie afternoon she had once spent with Bryant and Edna Wagstaff in a rundown slum flat filled with feline familiars.

“We’re lucky she’s had a cancellation and can fit us in so soon. She doesn’t normally make house calls.”

“You’ve already spoken to her? What have you arranged?”

“She’s meeting us outside the stage door at midnight tonight.”

“No, Arthur, you promised Davenport you wouldn’t. No mumbo-jumbo, he said.”

“I think she might be able to do some good. Sensations of pain and harm are as visible to her as the walls around us. She doesn’t charge, but I usually drop her something. Mrs Wagstaff is tormented by her gift. Past, present and future are all the same. Everything crosses over. The only way she can relieve the pain her gift causes is by using it to help others.”

“And you really believe this?” asked May.

“With all my heart.” Bryant’s pale blue eyes were so wide, so honest that he had to be telling the truth.

♦

“I’m sorry I’m late. The blackout and the fog. I had to follow a tramline to get here, and then I followed it too far.” Tall and ascetic, wrapped in a frayed black coat and carrying a cat box, the old lady looked considerably more frail than when Bryant had last seen her.

“Hello, Edna,” he said jovially, “I hear you’re still living on the Isle of Dogs.”

“Oh yes, Arthur, one of the last. I’ve been bombed out twice now, and I lost my Billy, my proud boy, at Dunkirk. At least he saw service.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Bryant, taking her hand.

“He was happy to be mobilized. The air force and the navy have no chance to stop and think because they stay on duty around the clock. My boy spent so much time confined to barracks, he was so terribly bored with the endless drills. At least it was an active end.”

“But how are you?”

“Oh, they keep trying to rehouse me. I had people round from the council, telling me my cats were insanitary. I explained they were all dead, what harm could they do? How could you catch fleas from them? They were sprayed for parasites when they were stuffed. They want me to go to a home in Stepney. That’s miles away.”

“Can’t your daughter take you in?”

“She’s gone to the WRNS. I’m very proud. I wouldn’t want to bother her.” She made her way up the stairs with awkward slowness. “You know, I haven’t been to the theatre in years.”

“Edna, this is my new partner, Mr May.”

She reached over and shook his hand, then hastily released it.

“I do beg your pardon, Mr May. What a jolt. I get very strong feelings from some of the people I come into physical contact with, mostly the young ones.”

“Oh, really?” said May, rubbing the static shock from his fingers with some embarrassment. “What did you get from me?”

“Best not to say, just in case I’m wrong,” said Edna mysteriously. “Let’s not dwell on what hasn’t happened yet. I brought Rothschild with me. He’s an Abyssinian, the lion of cats.” She raised the cat box high.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” whispered May.

“Edna sees things.”

“And I can smell something.” May grimaced. “I think it’s her.”

“I just need to pick up the psychic scent,” she called over her shoulder.

“I don’t know how she’ll do it, she’s wearing so much of her own. She needs a bath, Arthur. And she’s got her wig on back to front.”

“You’re a sceptic, Mr May. I don’t mind.” Edna gave a throaty chuckle. “The world will need sceptics after the war is over. Too many people are ready to believe anything they’re told. Where do you want me?”

Bryant led the way up the painted concrete staircase until they reached a set of red double doors. “The dress circle will do,” he told her, “there are – ”

“Four floors, yes, I know, upper circle and balcony above us, stalls below.”

“You can sense the building’s layout?” asked May.

“No. I saw No, No, Nanette here. I’ll go down to the front, if I may. Perhaps one of you could carry Rothschild.”

May reluctantly took the cat box and waited as Bryant showed the old lady to the front of the balcony. He raised the box to eye level and peered inside. Something glittered blackly back at him.

“Do you still have your familiars, Evening Echo and Squadron Leader Smethwick?” asked Bryant, seating her on the aisle.

“Sadly no.” Edna arranged the folds of her coat about her. “The German bombers come right over my house and interfere with the signals.”

“You make it sound like tuning in a wireless, Mrs Wagstaff,” said May.

“Well, it’s not dissimilar,” said Edna. If she detected the scepticism in his voice she gave no sign of it. “Ever since they put a barrage balloon at the end of the street I’ve been getting terrible reception.”

“From your spirit guides?”

“No, on my wireless. I keep missing Gert and Daisy.” She leaned forward and looked about. “Of course, London theatres are filled with ghosts.” She smiled, patting Bryant’s arm. “Mostly just echoes of emotional experiences, drawn out by the intensity of performance in such buildings. Any actor will tell you. They’re terribly vulnerable to mental distress, you know. Unstable pathologies so often lead to cruelty and suicide. You know about the ‘Man in Grey’, I suppose.”

“He appears in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, just before the run of a successful production, doesn’t he?”

“That’s right, dressed in a three-cornered hat, a powdered periwig and a grey riding cloak. He always follows the same route along the back of the upper circle, starting from the bar and vanishing into the far wall. Even the firewatchers have seen him, and they’re not as prone to nerves as theatre folk. Workmen supposedly found his corpse bricked into a wall on the Russell Street side of the theatre. He had a dagger in his ribs. You can read about him in any cheap guidebook. I don’t suppose there’s much truth to the story, but there’s no denying the fact that such houses attract collective hysteria and magnify the emotions. After all, that’s what they’re intended to do.

“There are lots of lesser-known spirits, though. The Haymarket has the ghost of the dramatist John Buckstone. Margaret Rutherford had to spend the night there once during a rail strike, and found him in the wardrobe. Or hasn’t that happened yet? Time plays such tricks on me.” She thought for a moment, relaxing her watery green eyes.

“We’re more interested in sensations, Edna.”

“I understand. Could there be another animal in the building apart from Rothschild? A tortoise, perhaps?”

“Yes, there is,” said May, looking at his partner in puzzlement.

“I thought so. I was getting a distress message.”

“He has insomnia,” explained Bryant.

Edna stroked her knuckles restlessly, anxious to help. “There’s so much humanity here. So many people have passed through. There are few public places left in London that are as psychically rich as its theatres. The interiors don’t change. The walls absorb. I wonder if you’d get Rothschild for me?”

Bryant brought over the cat box and opened the wire door.

“I must be careful with him,” said Edna, “he’s getting rather fragile.” Her long, tapered fingers felt around the edges of the cat and pulled him out. Rothschild was a leonine sandstone-coloured Abyssinian, and had been stuffed in crouching position, as if watching a mouse. His ears were tattered with handling, one glass eye had sunk back into his skull and there was sand coming out of his bottom. She carefully set him on the edge of the balcony, facing the stage.

“Is there any way of lowering the house lights a little?”

May had arranged to have them left up, mainly because he was worried about the old lady tripping over.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he offered, heading back along the balcony.

“There are plenty of friendly spirits here, but then there should be,” she chattered on to Bryant. “First-time performers are sensitive to them. Sometimes they help newcomers to forget their nerves and remember their lines, or they redirect them to better positions on the stage. Actors sometimes speak of being guided by unseen hands. Oh, there is something here.” She became silent, and seemed to fall into a light sleep. The house lights dimmed and May quietly returned, taking a seat behind the medium.

The detectives listened and waited. The faint, high voice that emerged from Rothschild startled them both. At first it seemed little more than the sound of a draught whistling under a door. Gradually they were able to make out a few words. “Not the actors, the actors are adored.” The voice reverted to a thin wind. “Someone has been ignored and forgotten. No hatred…only desperation…desperation. History repeats.”

May studied the old lady’s face. She didn’t appear to be throwing her voice. Something prickled the base of his neck.

“It’s not his fault, you understand…” Now the voice was Edna’s, so alone, so melancholy. “Selfish and blind. Medea…Calliope…goddesses of the theatre, so very sad.” A tear ran down her left cheek and trembled on her chin. “The poor tortured soul is here, right among us now. A painted world is so confining. There must be a way to set such a trapped spirit free. The cruelty of the moonlight, so far beyond reach.”

Just as May was peering into them, Edna’s eyelids lifted, startling him. She sat up and wiped her chin. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, “I didn’t mean to get so upset. It’s being in a theatre. A house of the emotions. Did you hear the voice?”

“Yes,” said Bryant enthusiastically, nodding at his partner. “Who was it?”

“I rather fancy it belonged to Dan Leno, the clown. This used to be a music hall, didn’t it?”

“I believe so.”

“Dan’s ghost often used to appear in the halls. There were many recorded sightings at Collins’ Music Hall on Islington Green, and in Drury Lane. He would appear to give advice to the actors. Sometimes they heard him performing his clog-dancing routine. A very reliable source. What did he say?”

“Something about a forgotten tortured soul and a painted world, and history repeating,” said May irritably. “Greeks. It could mean anything.”

“You’re looking for a little child,” said Edna firmly. “A child so desperate to be set free that it must hurt people. I feel that very strongly.”

“You make it sound as if we’re supposed to be searching for a ghost.”

“I rather think not,” said Edna, lifting the cat back into its box. “This is not someone reaching from beyond the grave. The person you seek is real, and dangerous when cornered. Medea murdered her sons to take revenge on their father.”

“But we’re looking for a killer, not some Greek woman,” said May, exasperated. Edna did not appear to have heard. She looked up at the ceiling, listening to her inner voices. “Edna?” He turned to Bryant with his palms outstretched. “Look at her, she doesn’t know if she’s at the park or the pictures.”

“Come on, Edna,” said Bryant gently. “Let’s get you home.”

He helped her from her seat, and for a moment the house lights flickered out. They waited in the oppressive darkness, halted by the foot of the stairs, listening to the old woman’s laboured breath. Then the auditorium filled with light. May wanted to complain that the visit had been a waste of time, but something stilled within him as he watched the balcony curtain lift and fall in the sighing draught that blew beneath the doors, as though the spirit of the theatre had departed with them.